Councillors’ meeting attendance revealed

The information was released following a Freedom of Information request.

Just two county councillors attended all their scheduled county council meetings last year. Fianna Fáil’s Patricia Walsh and Sinn Féin’s Paddy McDonald were the only two elected representatives to have a perfect attendance record in 2021.

Details released to The Anglo-Celt under the Freedom of Information Act show they attended 22 and 27 meetings respectively.

Their record is in contrast to that of Cllr Craig Lovett (FF) who missed 10 of the 26 meetings he was scheduled to attend - by far the lowest attendance record of the council’s 18 councillors.

He attended 61% of the meetings of the plenary Council, Municipal District (MD) and the two Strategic Policy Committees (SPC) on which he sits.

Cavan County Council met in plenary session - a full meeting of all councillors - 11 times last year.

First elected in 2019, Cllr Lovett - who’s also Leas-Cathaoirleach of the Council - attended seven of those meetings, with 11 of the 18 councillors having full attendance. He was also at four of the seven Ballyjamesduff MD meetings.

While he attended all of the four Cultural Development, Irish Language and Sport SPC meetings held, he attended neither of the two meetings involving the Climate and Biodiversity Action and Environment SPC.

He was also one of three councillors to miss the controversial annual budget meeting held in November, with Cllr Sarah O’Reilly (AON) and Cllr Philip Brady (FF) also absent.

Cllr Lovett did not respond to a request for comment from The Anglo-Celt.

2020 saw better attendance by Cavan’s Councillors but the pandemic restrictions in place at the time meant many meetings were held online.

Six councillors had full attendance - Cllrs Sarah O’Reilly, Patricia Walsh, Peter McVitty, John Paul Feeley, Trevor Smith and Winston Bennett.

Cllr Seán Smith, had the lowest attendance at 60%, or 18 of 30 meetings. However, he was undergoing medical treatment.

Speaking to the Celt, Cllr Smith said he had undergone an “extensive operation” at the end of 2019 and was undergoing chemotherapy treatment throughout 2020 and into 2021.

“I was told by my doctors to not leave the four walls of the house [during the pandemic] but I went to the meetings on zoom,” he said, pointing out his attendance improved in 2021.